Move over Toronto: Montreal is making a play to be Canada’s hottest housing market

The Montreal housing market has been having a banner year, and October was no exception, as sales jumped 11 percent year-over-year.

There were 3,731 sales recorded in the city last month, according to the Greater Montreal Real Estate Board (GMREB), marking a new all-time October sales record.

The market has seen a whopping 44 months of consecutive sales increases, fueled by a strong job market and rising immigration numbers. Condo sales jumped 22 percent year-over-year, while single family home sales rose 6 percent.

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“The condominium segment is booming. Thanks to strong sales and a sharp decrease in listings, the number of months of inventory has dropped significantly over the past year, falling from 10.2 months to seven months,” writes Nathalie Begin, president of the GMREB board of directors, in a statement.

Just how far did listings fall? They were down 17 percent year-over-year last month, coming in at just 21,515.

That lack of supply pushed the median price of a condo up 4 percent year-over-year to $265,000, while the median price of a single-family home rose 4 percent to $329,250.

“[The condo market] has moved from a buyer’s market to a seller’s market in just one year,” writes Begin.

The numbers come on the heels of a recent Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) report, which warned that the Montreal market could be at risk of overheating.

“Montreal’s resale market is close to overheating, creating significant upward pressure on prices as a result of a sharp tightening between supply and demand,” reads the CMHC release.

The city’s seasonally adjusted sales-to-new-listings ratio was close to 66 percent in Q2. A ratio of between 40 to 60 percent is considered balanced, with readings above and below indicating sellers and buyers markets, respectively. CMHC deemed Montreal’s current ratio “just below the threshold for problematic conditions.”

“The active listings-to-sales ratio, continued to decrease, thereby also showing the Montreal resale market has been tightening and increasingly favourable to sellers,” writes Marie-Claude Guilotte, an economist for CMHC, in the release.